Maleficent: True Love's Truth
by kronschai
Summary: A dream, maybe a fairy tale. But what's before and what is after it, Aurora, Diaval and Maleficent?


"Let it come," Diaval blurted. "The wind, the rain. The real wolves, the haze. The granaries of all those peasants dancing in the autumn winds, should you wish them to be dismembered and their grains scattered on thin air! Oh, yes, Maleficent, divided beams circling mid-air, in the breeze of The Moors. How lovely!" thundered Diaval, feeling himself to be fully liberated. "I might just notice them sneering and hissing at me, if I do not keep my eyes shut — but I've not my feathers for these trifles!"

The fervor of the rising winds gave him courage. And these strange, if not impetuous remarks of his found their reassuring roots in a rather sardonic smile that here and now took hold of his lips little by little: in curving upwards, these two boiling lines of flesh and blood were the first responders to the wind that touched the Raven. Writhing within his crumbling self in the form of a blistering sensation of helplessness and deep unrest, it made him speak louder and louder.

Maleficent thought perhaps that Diaval resembled a crowing devil in human form, such was the degree of the Raven's despair in so bluntly spitting his words out. A charm, a liquor maybe? An enchantment of a most distressing substance? What leaf had he smelled out — what water drunk and from which arcane pond in her Kingdom? She looked at Aurora with a face of stone, and Aurora looked back at Maleficent with one of concern. How wrong, the faerie godmother thought, to see such well-spread wrinkles on the forehead of a true, innocent beauty. At her age, and indeed with her curls that had never been soiled by any distress. Oh, wondrous was she who had been spared the curse of self-doubt, blessed she who reigned and still had known not of the taste of that most delectable fruit of good and evil.

"What of these, Diaval?" asked Maleficent, decidedly enough to save face in front of the now prying eyes of her forested Kingdom, but not to keep her inner balance unshattered. She loathed herself for not being able to take on the Raven's voice with an articulation equal in frankness and in scope.

Diaval turned around and, facing the lush woodland, scoffed tenfold to the almost undisturbed darkness, for small glimpses of light hovered amidst the crooked boughs. He thought of himself as having quite and extensive audience that could witness a tear or two imminently springing from the corner of an eye or the other. But he scoffed again and he sighed, and he caressed his right fist which was as clenched as a knot with the unwound fingers of the left, all five burning and feeling entirely unnatural. He wished for feathers and wings, but could not possibly ask Maleficent for another act of the beastly comedy. And he wished for the strength to appease the melancholy that was ravaging his innermore pillars.

"It's true," he said soflty, turning back and facing them both, "that I've not had my wings for your every whim and cry. I have myself willed to carry out your requests, uttered and unutterd, Maleficent, for they were noble and in the true spirit of redemption," he continued, now fixing Aurora with his piercing gaze. Nevertheless, Maleficent could easily observe the glistening moist that was surely blurring the irksome flame though which Diaval was perceiving them — and breathed, and felt, and grasped in an unseen pose them and their kingly poise. Maleficent and Aurora, Maleficent and Aurora.

"But what of me? Who am I — what? Where from and hither where?" he laughed nervously. " A crow — a man? — a wolf — a horse — a man? — oh, a hell-bound dragon — a pet?!"

Maleficent was amazed. Had she even wanted to reply, anything mumbled would have been a pitiless, pointless self-shaming. As for Aurora, this newly-gilded Queen experienced for the first time what might only have been described as a damnable stirring of the heart; a second face of the flaming coin, one to be in search, to wander and finally to be paired, in a deceiving instant, with Diaval's, without hesitation. For Aurora had dreamt, and had chiefly awoken, and been anointed, only to slip once more into a dream-like state; oh, but this time one filled with the most dreadful uncertainty. A hunger, Maleficent thought, to question and incite, to whirl and quiver, to shake and delight in whatever the depths of all these happenings had to offer.

"A bird indeed. A selfless one at that, until your magic. But where's my nest, Maleficent? And is it possible that there are more of us, awaiting to be brought to surface, to light and consciousness? How is it even possible, tell me! What am I, who?And what right have I to profit from this, when others can't?"

"I'm sure I don't have a clue, Diaval. These aren't questions for our time and understanding, I believe."

"Our time? What is time? What time? A time for endless faerie music? A time to reign supreme, and happy, and adored? Adore who? Myself? You all? Adore and rejoice in this ever-enchanting Kingdom, when, for I all know, I could have stolen the carcass of some unfortunate, and have appeared here human, and always followed you since?"

"Oh, Diaval!" cried Aurora. "Whatever are you asking? Whatever is this? How can you be so cruel?"

"Not cruel, Beastie," said an absent-minded Maleficent. "Only harshly inquisitorial, which is not at all the same thing," she continued, in the same sharp, melancholy tone. "Rightly so, I might add..."

"Who can say what — and of what consequence? What are all this avatars for? And what could be the purpose of my feathers, to go through all of them at your sole command, but not by my will's true wish? No, wait — perhaps there's more! — there's more, there should be more!" Diaval exclaimed, moving about in front of them. "We are two ancient Kingdoms after all, are we not?"

"True," replied Maleficent, "but who can say how old?"

"No-one, you see, for we neither care nor want to care!" resumed Diaval. "Because, you see, these trees suffice! The rocks and mountains suffice! And the winding rivers also suffice! And the imposing castle of that other Kingdom, Aurora's true seat, does also suffice! It is enough, perhaps, to see this beauty and live it now, and now, and never then-yesterday, then-tomorrow, never then, then..." ravened further Diaval, as an authentic raven that he was. "Have I my wings, as you have yours, Maleficent, to embrace from the heavens, high, the rising fires which melt the wheat stumps, come autumn? But what of those stumps' ominous roots? A Kingdom of Old indeed!" laughed Diaval in and out of himself. After a short paused, he contined. "To melt those long-forgotten crumbs of saying, rather, lumps of ancestral wisdom stuck in the withered soil for so many years! But who would know? Who? In burning, their form shall be that of a treacherous smoke. But they are finally to be free, Maleficent. And I await them, arms or wings or bulky feet unrolled to the skies, and nostrils reminiscent of a faerie god in their widening avidity! I await them, to become them. Who will I be without them? If they all should say something, should give my any answer, I am to pay attention, Mistress."

Aurora had started crying, sobbing her guts out as well as munching on her white knuckles which she held so close to her teeth, full of half-understood emotions.

"And pray, my Lady Aurora, don't cry for me, I am fulfilling myself, or rather trying, if anything. Chew me with spices if you will, as that little hand of yours, if that soothes you. But as for my caring for you, I must tell you, my Ladies: you shall shatter your teeth, then you will not be able to kiss away a chink of poor, stupid Diaval. A bit to keep for yourselves, a bit to cherish it before he flies away. Indeed, that will not be possible. You will be too absorbed, too busy feasting on your own blood; manically, egoistically feasting on your still present beauty. How else, Maleficent? How else, Aurora?"

The raven paused, came closer and passed his fingers through one of Aurora's unbraided locks. "I will not be needed then — and anyway I'm not now needed, as you two have yourselves. And, as such, I will be forced to withdraw — to leave, as I had intended all long, I think, my Ladies. To depart for King Stefan's ashes, if they can throw some light on this bloody mess. And, if not, for those of the wicked King before him, and before, and before, before..."

He paused, as he choked on his own saliva trying to prolong a single stretch of breath, of speech.

"But then, then, I hope, to ascend to some Home above this Moorland Kingdom. A Home of wood tar and honey — honey, you know? I do believe ravens love honey," Diaval chuckled again, but sorrowful, most miserable.

Maleficent's eyes were heavy. She did not know what to make of the confession. She too had always loved the changing of the seasons in the open fields, autumn and spring and whatever else, but not like that — not like this. This was madness. She should not have come. Should not have listened to Diaval. Should not have het Aurora listen to him. For she was to marry her prince, and be happy. But this? What was this? This was a refined wine from the Human Kingdom, to dazzle a mere human, kept only for coronations, such as Aurora's, and somehow spilled before its time, to please the guts of a dancing lunatic wrought in spasms — ravenly madness not to be overlooked.

Maleficent turned on her heel, already breathing the thought of the quiet cloister near the centering of the Moorland Forest, but stopped abruptly. The mighty sanctuary with its reassuring silhouette, in the way she experienced it only a day before, with both Aurora and Diaval, was gone. She should have seen this coming. Should have talked to Diaval. Should have done something. Anything. In its stead was yearning. A sanctuary of yearning. In every stone eaten by lichen, yearning. A desire to turn back to peace. What peace? There was to be peace no more. Why had she left Diaval to talk? She could have moved her fingers and turned him back into a pitiful bird. Or, she could have tied this prince of birds and his unmerciful tongue to herself. Or to Aurora... Never to be parted, in a sense. Forever treading blessed alleys between the Oak walls. Alleys never stifled by rust-stricken roses — never to feel sorry for the dying corolla, but, at the same time, to spin, imperceptibly, his madness. The madness, always there. The Raven's hungry madness. Such was his tongue. Without him knowing, for how could a man know this of himself, such were his curls, his nose and his eyes. Confronting him again, she observed it clearly: flesh of autumn, a crowing bird of autumn and ruins, to be held close and contemplated in a constant flow of tears.

How, why, and what indeed was she actually thinking? Maleficent could not tell. Any other explanations had to wait, she concluded in haste and with a daring smile, as there were tears to be shed. Hers, as well as Aurora's, and his, Diaval's. There were tears on all three parts. Souls stirred, illusions broken.

The marble was cracked, far from a faerie perfection that one or another inhabitant of those parts might have been used to. In all respects, Diaval was the Queen's likeness; and he was also Maleficent's likeness and he was crowing this unawares, without being any crow; and even his spirit, beneath all that rugged flesh and black attire, was feeling this, and struggled with it, and wanted who knows what, and was trembling with this conscience.

For another moment, neither flinched. Only three looks of the greatest remorse possible. And then, heads lowered to the ground, all three started walking. Back on to a well-beaten path, back to the heathen forest rings. Unsufficiently tangled. Superficially cried. A mere howling of the Moor winds, indeed nothing more than the incessant yearning as the wintry-to-be sun was preparing its exit. A trifle, to be sure — like that Diaval affirmed.

Diaval frowned at Maleficent, but Maleficent knew this was only to drape his tears. She waved her hand and the next thing that Aurora saw was a silent, rather disheveled raven that ascended to the moon-lit skies. Only the two wooshing wings were heard.


End file.
